Crypto

Crypto Swindler Sam Bankman-Fried Has Scored a Big Win From Behind Bars

Published

2 years ago

January 3, 2024

Crypto Swindler Sam Bankman-Fried Has Scored a Big Win From Behind Bars

The cryptocurrency industry landed one of its most desired prizes last month when regulators at a small but potentially pivotal federal agency allowed a little-known cryptocurrency company to oversee all aspects of brokering, facilitating, and clearing trades of its digital assets.

Regulators and experts say the move, which came after millions were spent in lobbying in 2023 alone, could endanger customer assets and stifle competition, as well as set a dangerous precedent that could set up this and other financial markets for spectacular collapse.

The December 13 approval of the application from Bitnomial, a small Chicago-based crypto derivatives company, is the first time the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has approved any financial institution to vertically integrate as an exchange, broker, and clearinghouse, without doing so through company acquisitions.

In most financial markets, the responsibilities for different functions are handled by separate entities to prevent conflicts of interest and ensure market stability. One entity runs the exchange where financial instruments are traded; another is a broker which performs transactions on behalf of clients; and another clears, or validates, the transactions before they go through.

The approval of Bitnomial’s application comes after years of cryptocurrency interests — most prominently, convicted financial fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried — cozying up to CFTC regulators and pushing to ensure all federal crypto regulations are handled by the commission. The CFTC’s limited size and funding could lead to laxer oversight, compared to regulations from the much more aggressive and powerful Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Now, with the Bitnomial approval, experts told the Lever that a precedent has been set that could allow more companies under CFTC oversight to vertically integrate into massive financial firms that could be susceptible to collapse.

“It’s a pretty big deal that’s flying under the radar, and it came up as a surprise at year end,” Dennis Kelleher, president and CEO of consumer advocacy group Better Markets, told the Lever. “Although it’s no surprise that the crypto-friendly CFTC chairman Rostin Behnam would do this without much advance notice — ramming something through that’s crypto friendly at year end, that’s not a surprise.”

One CFTC commissioner who voted against the approval criticized her colleagues for rushing through the five-member commission’s first-ever vertical integration approval.

“We are in the middle of a public consultation on vertical integration and concerns with vertical integration have been expressed by the White House . . . Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and other banking regulators,” said CFTC commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero in a December 13 press release. “I do not understand why the Commission would rush to register this small start-up company, thereby setting precedent, without completing the analysis that we are in the middle of right now.”

Bitnomial says it did not pursue its application to “create a vertically integrated entity,” and that it still plans on working with multiple brokers. Bitnomial also claims its application did not receive an expedited process.

“The application wasn’t rushed,” a Bitnomial spokesperson told the Lever. “As was pointed out by CFTC staff in the public meeting, the application was first recommended for approval in early 2023 and the commission contemplated it so long that their statutory [180-day] deadline lapsed, at which point Bitnomial agreed to extend the deadline. Bitnomial is seeking this approval to expand digital asset support and access given how nascent the regulated digital asset derivatives market is in the US”

The CFTC, which was originally established in 1974 to oversee agricultural futures contracts, has been called the “Achilles Heel” of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act because it was handed oversight of the massive US derivatives market, including all financial options, swaps, and futures, after the 2008 financial crisis.

In 2022, the CFTC had an operating budget of just $332 million and 743 full-time employees, compared to the SEC, which oversees the stocks and bonds markets and had a 2022 budget of nearly $2 billion dollars and more than forty-five hundred full-time employees.

The crypto industry has worked diligently over the years to make the CFTC the sole regulator of digital assets. It’s why the fight over the definition of cryptocurrencies has become heated; some regulators view it as a security, similar to a stock or bond, which would likely bring it under the purview of the SEC, while others view it as a commodity, like grain or oil, which would place its regulation under the CFTC.

The CFTC has developed a congenial relationship with the crypto industry — and in particular Bankman-Fried, the disgraced former CEO of the massive crypto exchange FTX, which collapsed in November 2022. Bankman-Fried played a pivotal role in glorifying crypto and lobbied the CFTC before he was arrested and ultimately found guilty on seven counts of felony fraud and money laundering in November. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for March 28, where he faces more than a hundred years in prison.

Before his criminal activity was discovered, Bankman-Fried and his associates were able to obtain same-day meetings with CFTC chair Behnam, thanks to the connections and efforts of former CFTC regulators that FTX hired as top deputies.

Behnam, a former equities trader and congressional advisor, was appointed to the CFTC in 2017 by former president Donald Trump. He was reappointed to the position in 2021 by President Joe Biden and elected chair by his co-commissioners.

Bitnomial’s application is similar to one that Bankman-Fried was pursuing for FTX, which was to allow the company to consolidate the exchange, broker and clearinghouse functions for the digital assets it managed. The FTX application sought to change how derivatives markets and clearinghouses operate; the Bitnomial application was less ambitious, Kelleher said.

“[Bitnomial’s approval] not only allows crypto firms to get bigger, but it positions them to get connected to the core of the financial system, where when they get in trouble, like dominoes, they could have knock-on effects on the traditional banking and financial system, which could lead to crashes and bailouts,” Kelleher said.

Bitnomial, founded in 2014, is a relatively small company with just $1.7 million in total assets, and its application was not given a public comment period, like the one FTX underwent, when it submitted its application in April 2022.

Instead, in June 2023, the CFTC issued a Request for Comment for an obscure process, called “Impact of Affiliations of Certain CFTC Registered Entities,” to consider the potential issues that may arise from vertical integration under CFTC regulation. The CFTC received over 160 comments during this process, many of which warned of the potential risks associated with vertically integrated financial institutions.

“The CFTC should have put the Bitnomial application out for public comment and it should have taken that information and the information submitted in response to the ‘Impact of Affiliations of Certain CFTC Registered Entities’ all into account before it took action . . . and allowed the dangerous affiliations presented in the Bitnomial application,” Kelleher said.

CFTC commissioner Goldsmith Romero expressed similar concerns.

“We received so many comments expressing serious concerns about conflicts of interest risk, risk of customer harm, anti-competitive risks, contagion risk, financial stability risks, and systemic risk,” she said in her December 13 press release. “That means the stakes are high if we get this wrong.”

Steven Adamske, a senior spokesperson for the CFTC, declined to comment on Commissioner Goldsmith Romero’s comments suggesting the application was rushed through.

“The Bitnomial Application has been with the commission for over a year where we have a statutory deadline to act within a certain period of time,” he said. “I would point out, however, that the application has been under consideration for over a year and that in Commissioner Goldsmith Romero’s December 18 statement, she notes she was prepared to vote against the application in May.”

He also noted the Commodity Exchange Act and the Commission’s own recommendations do not require a public comment period for the type of application Bitnomial submitted.

Although the company is small, Bitnomial has deep-pocketed investors, including investment firm Franklin Templeton and crypto exchange Coinbase. Both companies have spent more than $3.7 million combined lobbying Congress, the CFTC, the White House, and other federal entities on crypto and additional issues in 2023 alone, disclosures show.

Kelleher, the president of Better Markets, said Bitnomial’s application would never have been approved by the SEC because securities law prevents this type of consolidation. He added that the consolidation is similar to the market structure that was allowed right before the stock market crash of 1929, preceding the Great Depression.

Kelleher added that it was this structure — one entity acting as an exchange, broker, and clearinghouse — that also caused the collapse of FTX, even though the arrangement was illegal to do so at the time.

“They were technically separate entities, but they had common control, which was Sam Bankman-Fried,” Kelleher said. “It illustrates that when you have those conflicts of interest, the pressure to advantage different parts of your business for your own benefit and at the expense of others like investors and customers is overwhelming. And that’s effectively what the CFTC is approving here.”

CFTC commissioner Kristin N. Johnson also warned about the dangers of vertically integrated financial companies, but ultimately voted for the Bitnomial application after she said Bitnomial promised to put consumer protections in place to prevent conflicts of interest.

In a press release explaining his support of Bitnomial’s application, CFTC chair Behnam made no mention of the possible dangers of vertical integration and praised Bitnomial for incorporating changes regarding concerns that arose from the public comments they received.

“Bitnomial has demonstrated compliance . . . [and] this demonstration of compliance is all that is required for registration,” Behnam said in a press release. “Bitnomial has also adopted rules that specifically address potential conflicts of interest associated with having [a vertically integrated company] and a separate, stand-alone policy that addresses potential affiliate conflicts.”

Behnam also said vertically integrated clearinghouses “are not novel structures,” that Bitnomial’s application was standard, and that the Commission should not hold them to a higher standard, “ nor should it require compliance with rules that have not yet been proposed or approved,” Behnam said in a December 18 press release.

But for consumer advocates like Kelleher, the CFTC’s approval of this model represents a “big Christmas present at year end” for the industry.

“I think the bottom line of this crypto application approval is that the action really shows, again, what a weak crypto regulator the CFTC is,” Kelleher said. “And how ill-suited it is to properly regulate a largely lawless financial market like crypto.”

Crypto

Haverhill Considers Ban on Cryptocurrency ATMs as Consumer Protection Measure

Published

4 hours ago

March 17, 2026

Press Room

Haverhill is contemplating banning cryptocurrency automatic teller machines in the name of consumer protection. Haverhill city councilors Tuesday night will consider the ban proposed by Mayor Melinda E. Barrett. If the ban is approved, the handful of existing machines must be removed within 60 days and violators could be fined $300 a day. “The city

Crypto

Crypto Market Daily Movements | Cryptocurrency market surges, with Bitcoin rising to $74,000; Michael Saylor releases another Bitcoin Tracker update, with potential disclosure of additional purchase data expected this week.

Published

1 day ago

March 16, 2026

Press Room

Crypto Market Daily Movements | Cryptocurrency market surges, with Bitcoin rising to ,000; Michael Saylor releases another Bitcoin Tracker update, with potential disclosure of additional purchase data expected this week.

On March 16, reports indicated a significant surge in the cryptocurrency market. As of press time, $Bitcoin (BTC.CC)$ increased by 3.68%, trading at $74,110.63; $Ethereum (ETH.CC)$ surged by 8.47%, trading at $2,271.08.

$Strategy (MSTR.US)$ Michael Saylor, founder of Strategy, once again shared updates about the Bitcoin Tracker. Based on previous patterns, Strategy typically discloses information about additional Bitcoin purchases the day after such updates are released.

Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, announced on the X platform that the Tether AI team will release a ‘genuine breakthrough achievement’ this week.

Michael Saylor posted on the X platform that the brief on digital credit includes: 1. Acquiring a substantial amount of value-added capital (BTC); 2. Issuing credit (STRC) against this capital, which is over-collateralized by an equity base; 3. Monetizing part of the value-added returns through direct or derivative means (MSTR) to fund dividends.

On March 15, $Circle (CRCL.US)$ information published on its official website showed that during the week ending March 12 local time, $USDCoin (USDC.CC)$ issued approximately 5.2 billion tokens, redeemed approximately 3.6 billion tokens, and its circulating supply increased by approximately 1.7 billion tokens. As of March 13 local time, the circulation of USDC was approximately 78.7 billion tokens, with reserve assets valued at approximately $78.9 billion.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, in the past 24 hours, ShapeShift founder Erik Voorhees spent 29.44 million $Tether (USDT.CC)$ to purchase 13,986 ETH. Over the past six days, he has cumulatively purchased 21,293 ETH at an average price of $2,091, with a total expenditure of 44.52 million USDT.

ChainCatcher reported that Takatoshi Shibayama, Ledger’s head of the Asia-Pacific region, stated that if the U.S. implements a broader ban on stablecoin yields, discussions will emerge among institutions, stablecoin issuers, and regulators in other countries. He pointed out that countries like Australia have already provided regulatory exemptions for stablecoin issuers, but currently, most stablecoins do not offer users yields or rewards even outside the U.S., in order to protect banking interests.

Eric Trump, the second son of Trump, posted on the X platform stating that he completely disagrees with former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s claim that ‘Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme.’ Boris Johnson previously claimed that he had always suspected Bitcoin to be an enormous Ponzi scheme and later believed this suspicion was correct after hearing various tragic stories. This statement sparked significant controversy, with several figures from the crypto community, including Michael Saylor, Samson Mow, Paolo Ardoino, and Adam Back, expressing differing opinions.

According to CoinDesk, Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer of Bitwise Asset Management, stated that if Bitcoin can capture a larger share of the global store-of-value market currently dominated by gold and government bonds, it could eventually reach $1 million per coin. However, the $1 million target is less a precise prediction and more a shorthand for Bitcoin maturing into a major global monetary asset, contingent upon long-term institutional adoption and the expansion of the store-of-value market.

Some supporters believe that geopolitical tensions, potential crises in traditional ‘safe’ assets, and Bitcoin’s fixed supply could all accelerate its rise, but most people think this would take a decade or longer, rather than being an imminent event.

Wu said that according to SoSoValue data, during last week’s trading days (March 9 to March 13, Eastern Time), Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a net inflow of $767 million, marking the third consecutive week of net inflows. Ethereum spot ETFs recorded a net inflow of $161 million, also achieving net inflows for three consecutive weeks. $Solana (SOL.CC)$ Spot ETFs saw a net inflow of $10.7 million. $Ripple (XRP.CC)$ Net outflow of spot ETFs amounted to $28.07 million.

According to ChainCatcher, currently $OFFICIAL TRUMP (TRUMP.CC)$ the top position on the leaderboard for token holders attending the luncheon is held by a user with the Chinese ID “Little X,” with a current score of 153.3 million points. The score increases by approximately 2.2 million points per hour, corresponding to 2.2 million TRUMP tokens, worth about $9 million at the current price of $4.1 per token. The threshold for the top 29 participants eligible to share the stage with the U.S. President is 1.5 million points, while the qualification for attending the Mar-a-Lago luncheon among the top 297 participants is 31 points.

Luncheon scoring rules: Holding TRUMP tokens via Solana or Robinhood wallets earns 1 point per token per hour; purchasing Trump-branded sneakers, watches, or fragrances awards 10 points per dollar spent, issued only once at checkout. Previously, it was announced that the U.S. President will host a Mar-a-Lago luncheon for the top 297 TRUMP token holders, with the top 29 being invited to a VIP reception.

Analysis: For Strategy to hold 1 million Bitcoin by year-end, it would need to increase its holdings by approximately 6,158 Bitcoin per week.

According to CoinDesk, Strategy currently holds 738,731 Bitcoin and would need to acquire an additional 261,269 Bitcoin to reach 1 million by the end of 2026. With approximately 42 weeks remaining, this equates to an average purchase of about 6,158 Bitcoin per week. At an estimated average price of $85,000 per Bitcoin, the total investment would amount to approximately $22.2 billion.

The company’s recent purchasing pace indicates that this goal may be achievable: last week, it purchased 17,994 Bitcoin in a single week, and the issuance of STRC preferred shares this week suggests an approximate acquisition of 11,000 Bitcoin. Since launching its Bitcoin treasury strategy in August 2020, Strategy has averaged about 10,700 Bitcoin purchases per month. In 2026 alone, it has acquired approximately 64,948 Bitcoin, far exceeding historical annual averages.

Crypto trading and lending company BlockFills (operating entity Reliz Ltd) has officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. The filing shows that the company estimates its assets to be between $50 million and $100 million, with liabilities ranging from $100 million to $500 million.

BlockFills stated that this move aims to achieve an orderly restructuring and stabilize operations. The company had previously suspended customer deposits and withdrawals in February and faced a court-issued asset freeze order due to allegations of asset misappropriation by Dominion Capital. BlockFills’ investors include Susquehanna and the venture capital arm of CME Group, with cumulative trading volume exceeding $61 billion by 2025.

The Brazilian Association of Cryptocurrency and Fintech Industries (ABcripto), ABFintechs, Abracam, ABToken, and Zetta issued a joint statement opposing the extension of the Financial Transaction Tax (IOF) to stablecoin transactions. These organizations represent over 850 companies in Brazil and argue that this measure may violate the Brazilian Constitution and Law No. 14,478, also known as the Virtual Asset Law, passed in 2022. Data indicates that Brazil’s monthly cryptocurrency market transaction volume is approximately $6 billion to $8 billion, of which about 90% involves stablecoin trades.

DWF Labs Partner: Traditional Altseason Is Fading, Institutional Capital Shifts to BTC, ETH, and RWA

Andrei Grachev, Managing Partner of crypto market maker DWF Labs, stated that the “altseason,” driven by the overall rise in the crypto market, is becoming a thing of the past. Factors such as the surge in token numbers, limited participant scale, and liquidity absorption by crypto ETFs are reshaping market structures. Institutional funds now prefer allocations in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and tokenized real-world assets (RWA), further diverting attention and capital from altcoins. The future market will likely experience shorter narrative cycles and more pronounced sector rotations, with a large number of mid-to-long tail tokens resembling high-risk venture investments or “casino-style” assets, unable to sustain themselves solely through speculation.

Data shows that the altcoin market has experienced cumulative outflows exceeding $209 billion over the past 13 months, with approximately 38% of altcoins currently trading near historical lows.

Evgeny Gaevoy, Founder and CEO of Wintermute, stated, “The Ethereum Foundation released its mission statement, and I see more criticism than celebration, which is understandable. After all, most of us in the crypto industry have transitioned into integrating with the existing global system. More seriously, the Ethereum Foundation is currently the only player with both resources and network effects, capable of not only sustaining but also realizing the cypherpunk dream.

In the short term, will this be reflected in Ethereum’s price? Definitely not. In the long term? Only if it succeeds. Should we care about the price? Personally, I believe goals matter more. I firmly think that at least someone should attempt to achieve these goals on a macro level rather than merely pursuing financial applications. Others can choose what they do and whether or not to hold ETH.

DeFi researcher Ingas posted on the X platform stating that BlackRock’s staking Ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETHB) attracted approximately $46 million in inflows within just two days of listing. The fund holds spot ETH and stakes 70%-95% of its ETH via Coinbase. Investors receive about 82% of the staking rewards in cash monthly, while the fund does not engage in compounding. This design may appeal to “large” investors seeking income generation, with the remaining 18% of rewards going to BlackRock and Coinbase.

Ingas stated that Blackrock launched a staking-focused Ethereum ETF separately, rather than adding staking functionality to the existing Ethereum exchange-traded fund ETHA, because staking increases the risk of punitive impairment, which some investors wish to avoid.

Editor/Joe

Crypto

Better Cryptocurrency to Buy With $2,000 and Hold for a Decade: XRP vs. Solana | The Motley Fool

Published

2 days ago

March 15, 2026

Press Room

Better Cryptocurrency to Buy With ,000 and Hold for a Decade: XRP vs. Solana | The Motley Fool

With XRP (XRP +1.57%) and Solana (SOL +1.37%) both badly bruised, losing more than half their value over the last six months, the pricing of both coins looks fairly forgiving for an investment right now.

But which of these two coins has what it takes to take an investment of $2,000 and keep it growing for the next 10 years?

Image source: Getty Images.

What these networks are trying to do

Ripple, the company behind XRP, has spent the last two years assembling something resembling a financial services business using the XRP Ledger (XRPL) as a crypto backbone for the entire effort.

Its acquisition of prime broker Hidden Road for $1.2 billion last year made it the first crypto company to own a brokerage clearing roughly $3 trillion in turnover annually, with all of that brokerage’s post-trade settlement now migrating onto the XRP Ledger. At the same time, spot XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have pulled in roughly $1.1 billion in net capital inflows since late 2025.

Ripple is also in the process of upgrading the XRPL to handle tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) with more functionality, so that it’ll be appealing to financial institutions looking for asset management solutions.

Today’s Change

(1.57%) $0.02

Current Price

$1.41

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$86B

Day’s Range

$1.39 – $1.43

52wk Range

$1.14 – $3.65

Volume

1.6B

Solana’s pitch is a bit different, and targeted at a much wider audience.

Rather than focusing on becoming part of the traditional (and centralized) financial value chain like XRP is, Solana’s chain hosts a large ecosystem of decentralized finance (DeFi) projects that’s worth a total of $6.6 billion in total value locked (TVL), a measure of capital stored in DeFi services. It’s also working to build up its tokenized asset management capabilities, and it has vastly more tokenized capital on its chain than the XRPL does. Furthermore, spot Solana ETFs attracted about $1.5 billion in inflows since their launch last year. And, unlike the XRPL, smart contracts are natively supported on Solana’s chain.

Today’s Change

(1.37%) $1.19

Current Price

$88.18

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$50B

Day’s Range

$86.92 – $88.77

52wk Range

$70.61 – $252.78

Volume

Both could be good choices

Now, let’s narrow down which one is the better investment over the coming 10 years.

In short, XRP’s central vulnerability is that the financial institutions it’s looking to for growth have many other options for essentially every task the XRPL can do. Failing to get their capital onto the chain will mean that its bull thesis will be disproven.

Solana’s risks stem from its ecosystem, which can be dysfunctional. For instance, a meme coin launchpad hosted on Solana is facing a class action lawsuit, which also names multiple Solana-affiliated organizations. The chain also faces plenty of competition, though it’s near the top of its pack at the moment.

Even given the lawsuit — which is just allegations at this point — the fact that Solana is already substantially succeeding in the domains of its choice makes it a more favorable pick than XRP to buy with $2,000 and hold for 10 years. But, if you want to round out your crypto portfolio with a purchase of XRP, it’s still a good pick.